Robotic assistance for healthcare

• Main Author: Tan, Calvin Wei Siang
• Other Authors: Lam Siew Kei
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/76224
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Singapore is currently facing an aging population, and with it, the need for health assistance will become a greater concern [1]. Health assistance like medication intakes and subsequent follow-up care are vital to an elderly with declining health [2]. An incorrect intake or a missed medical appointment may result in fatal consequence to them [3]. Furthermore, with limited hospital facilities around and with them constantly being filled up. This resulted in elderlies relying on Stay-at-Home Elderly Care that aims to provide affordable Home Care or elderly home as alternatives [4]. Both of the alternatives lead to the rising need of eldercare in Singapore, the role of the caregiver has now become much more essential than before [5]. Much of the caregiver day-to-day activities requires manually monitoring of the elderly (one to one in most cases). However, due to the demand of caregivers, some of which may have multiple elderlies to care for and not able to monitor all of them at once [6]. Due to the ratio of elderly to caregiver being higher over the past few years [7]. Therefore, there is a need to automate such a process between the interaction and monitoring of caregivers to the elderly. For the elderly that are relying on the Stay-at-Home type of service, there is a risk of them falling while being alone in the home. According to centers for disease control and prevention, the risk of a fatal injury after a fall or simply the fact that after a fall the elderly are more susceptible to falls makes elderly monitoring all the more important [8]. The need for automatic monitoring will not only make the elderly feel safer at home, but it will also lighten the workload on the caregiver [9]. This report proposes a mobile automatic monitoring system for both formal and informal home care patients and care centers. The proposed system will provide security and a feeling of safety by detecting when a resident suffers from a fall. This feeling of safety can increase a person's ability to perform daily routines at home. After the detection, the system will be able to alert professional personnel or family. The Proposed System consists of 2 parts. A web interface that is designed to be used by the caregiver to simultaneously monitor multiple elderlies as well as having control over the robot individually remotely. As well as the robot itself which is made comprising of an Auriga Board coupled with a Raspberry Pi 3 model B+. The proposed system is affordable. This system uses computer vision to detect persons and their actions. The caregiver has the ability to control the starting of the robot functionalities over the web interface. The power bank that will be powering the entire robot configuration has a battery life of an estimated 16 hours on a full charge. The robot is designed in such a way that allows the power bank to be easily swapped out for charging purposes. This makes it very much more convenient for the caregiver and this system in general.